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Monday, June 19, 2017

Ancient herders from the Pontic-Caspian steppe crashed into India: no ifs or buts

It's now more than obvious that South Asia experienced an almighty pulse of admixture from an Early Bronze Age (EBA) population originally from somewhere on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe. This is fairly easy to demonstrate thanks to ancient DNA from Europe and West Asia. One way of doing it is with the qpGraph algorithm.

Moreover, the widespread presence of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a in South Asia is, at least in large part, linked to this event, because:

- Mesolithic Eastern European foragers belonging to basal clades of R1a do not show any South Asian or even Near Eastern ancestry, so it's likely that R1a is native to Eastern Europe and surrounds
- If R1a is native to Eastern Europe then it can't also be native to South Asia, which is not only thousands of miles away, but also ecologically a different world
- The most common R1a subclades in the world today, R1a-M417 and one of its main daughter branches R1a-Z93, appear in Late Neolithic and Bronze Age European pastoralist groups (Corded Ware, Srubnaya and closely related peoples) that harbor high levels of Eastern European forager ancestry and no signs of South Asian admixture
- Practically 100% of the R1a in South Asia today belongs to the R1a-Z93 subclade, which, based on full Y-chromosome sequencing data, looks like it began expanding rapidly only during the EBA, eventually making its way to South Asia, and this is in line with the available ancient DNA evidence
- In South Asia, R1a and ancient steppe admixture peak in groups that speak Indo-European, including Indo-Aryan, languages, suggesting that both are genetic signals of the Indo-European expansions into the Indian subcontinent

So we're now at a stage where anyone with at least moderate thinking capacity, whose mind isn't poisoned by extreme bias, has to agree that there was a rather large movement of people from the Eurasian steppes into South Asia during the Bronze Age. No ifs or buts.
Ancient DNA from South Asia is on the way. It might throw up a few surprises and force a new model of how the Indo-Europeans and R1a got to South Asia, but it won't turn things upside down. In other words, don't expect the Out-of-India or "indigenous Aryans" theory to suddenly come into the picture as a viable alternative to the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), occasionally presented as the more politically correct Aryan Migration Theory (AMT).
Many Indians still don't get this, or rather they refuse to get it, which is very frustrating, especially if you're a regular in the comments section here. But admittedly it can also be very entertaining.
Last week The Hindu published an interesting piece on the latest developments in South Asian population genetics that were making the AIT, or at least AMT, look like a sure thing:

Not really sure, but I'd say it's because only one of the Iran_N samples has well over 500K SNPs, and they're all pseudo-haploid samples, which tends to blow out the drift scores, I think even with the inbreed: YES flag.

I would be very surprised if Bronze Age Indo-Aryans are not ultimately from Corded Ware. I would they are derived from Corded Ware>Middle Dnjepr>Eastern Fatyanovo-Balanovo >Abashevo + Poltavka/Yamnaya substrate >Andronovo>BMAC

I will have to say this very bluntly. Yes a lot of people who object to Indo-European migration into South Asia often make incoherent and obsolete arguments. However this does not mean the Out of India argument is without merit. Indian historical tradition dating to and detailing the spread of Indo-Europeans across the subcontinent exists in the books known as Puranas. This is unique among all IE groups. This Indian tradition knows of no migration from outside South Asia but very pointedly notes the migration of one IE group from Punjab into Afghanistan and from there across the Hindu Kush into Central Asia. This group is known as Druhyus which is cognate with Avestan Druh, and likely with the Celtic Druid.

Leaving this aside, R1a z93 expansion in South Asia is dated to between 3300 Bc - 2000 bc (Poznick et al). This does not co-incide with the supposed date of Indo-aryan migration which is around 1500 bc. This co-incides with the most flourishing phase of the Indus civilization.

How did R1a z93 end on the steppe so early one might ask. It could certainly end up on the steppe early from the Indus civilization. During its expansion phase, R1a z93 did not necessarily spread only in South Asia but also outside it into Central Asia and beyond. The Indus civilization heavily influenced the Helmand & Jiroft civilization in Iran and the BMAC in Central Asia. The Indus had colonies as well, in Central Asia as well as in Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula. So this is proof of them moving outwards beyond South Asia. On the other hand, BMAC influence is present at sites such as Sintashta which show presence of R1a z93. The standard theory is that the Sintashta people were exporting metal to the BMAC people. So this can explain how South Asian R1a z93 got to the steppe.

As far as earlier presence of more basal classes of R1a on the steppe is concerned, this does not prove that R1a could not be present elsewhere earlier on. It is quite evident that ANE ancestry is pretty old in South Asia and did not come to South Asia during the Bronze Age. The presence of R2 as well as divergent early clades of r1b and of ydna Q also testify to early presence of R2 in South Asia. Hence, R1a could have been present both on the steppe as well as South Asia very early on. The only way to prove or disprove this is through ancient DNA from South Asia. Let that come. Why are you so desperate to rush to conclusion before that. Have some patience if you believe you're on the side of truth.

Lastly. Regardind the absence of ASI ancestry on the Bronze Age steppe. Let us note - we do not know how much the ASI presence was there (it at all it was) in northern regions of South Asia and in Central Asia during the early Bronze Age or earlier. At any rate, even if we believe that there was some ASI, I do not think it was higher than what it is in those regions. In Central Asia it is around 10 % while in Afghanistan it is around 15 - 20 %. Any migration from South Asia into the steppe would have a heavy presence of Afghani and Central Asian ancestry which would mean a very low prevalence of ASI ancestry of less than 10 % into the recipient population on the steppe.

Now from what I know, in one of the calculators of David, which he came out with after the publication of the Haag et al 2015 paper, the Yamnaya and corded ware have west Asian as well as South Asian component. The South Asian is around 4 - 6 %. It makes its appearance on the steppe along with the West Asian component. Before Yamnaya, among the EHG, the South Asian component is less than 1 %. So how does it shoot up to 6 % in the Yamnaya ? Can someone explain ?

Can someone explain to me why "Aryan invasion" is such a big deal? People talk about it like it is equivalent to the conquistador invasion of America.

IEs migrated to India at somepoint, big deal. They migrated into lots of places. We don't know how they got there. We don't know if it was in a short brutal invasion or a gradual gain of dominance over a region.

Shouldn't this "Aryan invasion" debate be called "Into India" vs "Out of India"?

Incoherent truth is millions times more better than coherent creationism , as one said earlier in a related discussion , there are two sides : one is desperate to prove the AIT/AMT and the other to prove OIT . Neither of the above article can be alluded of full merit , however , the second one is better not because its against the dogma of AIT but he at least is a better writer and he is totally right that an one sided interpretation was presented in that Joseph article who seems to be unaware of the basic genetics as he writes y-dna's presence in both males and females (LOL) .

But the thing is aDNA can do many things, of course it will not directly solve the language issue , but one can be sure that given the archaeological and cultural pattern that is observable for the subcontinent ,AMT will not stand a chance . It will either be totally diminished or will face drastic changes , which will not be surprising by any means , for people who have studied the ground data and hard data with the larger picture .

Well R1a will be there in India at least since Neolithic or Mesolithic . The focus will be on R1a-M417 . So for a start we need the aDNA first ....

Archaeologically its impossible to suggest a migration from CWC or Yamnaya or even Andronovo . So Neolithic to Iron age genome from S Asia is very important . Also almost equally important is to do more field studies from India on modern dna , its a pop of 1.3 billion , there are some untouched and important stuff .

There is no need for all this fuss , simply put the classic model for IE migration to India is already changed , so may see a totally new model by next year , a new start for the better and for the sake of facts .

It is not important that they came, many various people came to India. It is important what they brought with them. And it is not the language, many languages were brought to India. They brought a treasure much more important than language.

The same problem exists with Greeks. Everybody admires great ancient Greek culture, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus etc. But for Greeks it is very hard to admit that not everything in their fantastic, admirable culture is Greek made.

Greek and Indian philosophies were developing as commentaries to some very interesting ideas they got from North-Eastern European Hyperboreans, that’s why they are so similar.

I think it is selfishness. Instead of celebrating our common culture together they want it for themselves.

But there is a price for selfishness. As a punishment Indians don’t understand Rigveda and Greeks don’t understand Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus (their metaphysics). To understand they would have to work together and also ask North-Eastern European Hyperboreans for help.

If they do it they will be rewarded, they will win the sun, glory unspeakable. But it will take time before they understand.

Sorry if I sound ignorant but I do see above noise levels of South Asian component in the K15 graph which you provided for the Steppe samples and noise level South Asian for the Bell Beaker samples in the same chart, seeming that the Bell Beakers have a Western Origin and the CW an eastern one, is there something to this or is this a red herring?

It is not all selfishness. The Indian peoples have been abused by colonization and associated racist theories.

They managed to pull their country together and unite by denying that these theories were true, and embracing a belief that all things Indian originated in place. This would include genetics, religion, and language.

So, to now say, well... some of the stuff the old racists used to exploit us turns out to be true...

Well, that is just hard to swallow, and not great for everyone getting along. So, like in a significant part of America, they deny the science as just a hoax or political propaganda.

Based on the title, I was convinced that a South Asian or South Central Asian ancient DNA paper had finally come out.

"Plenty of R1a-M417 in Late Neolithic/Bronze Age Eastern Europeans that can't be derived from South Asia or even Iran. Obviously they got their R1a-M417 from Eastern European foragers."

I tried to find the oldest M417 from the European samples, so I took a shortcut and looked in that early spreadsheet from Mathieson et al 2017, and the Baltic aDNA papers (Saag 2017, Mittnik 2017 and Jones 2017 papers on the Baltic.

I may be missing something or just misremembering. But a quick look indicates that R1a-M417 is first observed among the samples after 3000 BCE, mostly Corded Ware. The Poltavka outlier is the oldest that I've now seen, at "2925-2491 calBCE". It's already Z94. However, Alberto mentioned that the Poltavka sample was from the Potapovka layer, which is from a later period. It doesn't matter either way, since the Nordic_MN_B sample from Denmark dated 2851-2492 calBCE is close enough in time. And the next earliest one is too, which is a Corded Ware sample from 2829-2465 calBCE Germany. Both are M417 and nothing further downstream is mentioned.

The South Asian component in the K15 is based on modern South Asians who are mixed, so it contains steppe admixture, and when ancient steppe samples are projected onto this modern variation they come out part South Asian.

That's why it's important to know what these different methods are showing exactly and their limitations.

@ak2014b

I wouldn't get too hung up on the ages of the ancient M417 samples in Eastern and Northern Europe. It's not like it's plausible that Corded Ware, Poltavka, or Baltic_BA have any ancestry from outside of Eastern Europe, or that they didn't get their M417 from their Eastern European forager ancestors.

Any talk of M417 spreading from South Asia to Europe is insane and can't be taken seriously.

"Practically 100% of the R1a in South Asia today belongs to the R1a-Z93 subclade

To add some numbers on M417 to the above.

I saw an Indian M417 sample in the 2015 paper by Underhill and others. I've just looked it up to make sure.

Out of their total of 1039 samples from South Asia, 1 is M417. It occurs among their N=97 South India sample set specifically, despite larger sample sizes for their data sets from North-Northwest India, N=225, and Pakistan, N=176. Although M417 is slightly over 1% for the region of south India based on the paper's samples, and at 0% for the rest of South and even Central Asia, I still think larger sample sizes for the entire region of southern Asia may be warranted to draw conclusions that better reflect the underlying population.

There's no instance of M417 in the paper's samples from Central Asia-Siberia, N=1301, of which 498 are Afghan samples.

There is 1 Iranian sample that's M417, from the paper's Iran "set 3" of 188 samples, out of its total of N=1765 Iran samples. The paper's sampling sizes don't seem to reflect population size. Iran has just under 80 million people and sample size N=1765, yet N is 1039 for all of South Asia which has 1.7 billion inhabitants.

0 M417 in Caucasus, N = 2167.

There's 1 M417 in Turkey's 617 + 30 samples. (The M417 instance was not found among those 30 Kurdish samples.)

And saving the most prolific for last, Europe has 9 x M417 instances out of N = 6632 samples. (Once again, the sampling sizes aren't terribly proportional, as Europe's population size is under three quarters of a billion.)

Of the 9 instances of M417 from Europe, all except 2 are from Western/Northern Europe. Of these, 3 are from the Netherlands with N(Netherlands)= 87, 1 from Ireland N=100, 1 from Germany N=322, 1 from South Sweden (Malmo) N = 141, and 1 from Norway's 118 samples. That’s 7 out their total of 1068 West/North European samples.

Then there's 1 M417 among 236 Estonians sampled, which is unexpectedly the sole instance of M417 from all their 2149 East Europe samples.

There's a Hungarian M417 out of 113 Hungarian samples, the sole M417 instance out of all 3415 Central/Southern European samples.

"Any talk of M417 spreading from South Asia to Europe is insane and can't be taken seriously."

That goes without saying. Any claims about what was there (unless based on inside knowledge of South Asia aDNA results) are devoid of actual ancient data and I disregard them on principle.

Curious timing regarding the 'Hindu' article. Does the author have some inside info? One thing's for certain, even when the Indus Valley samples are published and if there's no R1a, the out of India crowd will still go on about not enough samples and what not. By the way, what happened with the Shinde presentation? Did no one attend that conference or did that talk not even take place?

The qpGraph shows a relative of Iran_Neolithic and ASI being large contributing factors to the Brahmin. Since these components are non-existant on the steppes circa 3500 BC, we can safely say it was not a south to north migration if we follow the Steppe theory.

The real answer is a R1a rich population similar to Yamnaya (but lacking R1b) merged with the Caucasian hunter gatherers and moved into Iran and northern India, perhaps even just as a male military elite.

@DavidskiOh, so you deleted every single post of mine even though they were full of links and informations.Okay then, maybe it was due to me pointing fingers to Poles, ethnocentrism is very powerful and is hidden inside every one of us indeed.

But very well then. About your qpGraphs, they're useless until Harappan and ASA genome sequencing, so, I don't even know why are you doing this if you'll have to redo them later.Also, when the ASA paper is coming out? Do you have any information apart from "soon"? =/

The question has always been one of timing. I fear, unfortunately, that the insistence on a late IE arrival in India will only fuel more of this OIT stretching. All it takes is one horse encampment, even if from a very evidently intrusive culture, before 1700 BC, and the same people will claim that the nomads were indigenous.

Davidski, how much have you looked at the individual RISE 512--the Andronovo outlier from Allentoft 2015 that was also analyzed in Mathieson 2015? On the PCA in Mathieson it clusters with Bronze age steppe groups like Yamnaya Kalmykia and Afanasievo. You mentioned on Polishgenes that it had significant East Eurasian ancestry. What about the rest? Is this an Andronovo sample that lacks european farmer ancestry?

The reason for no Clear Archaeological Material connection between Steppe and India could maybe be that Steppe people adopted the Cultures that they came into contact with, much like what happened in Western Europe with the Bell Beaker phenomenon....

You are an idiot or just trying to sledge some funny conversation out .Anyway, I repeat , there is no way that S Asian R1a came from Steppe , nothing points to that . The only thing is there are tons of papers published from one side and the other is struggling with drought , we know that will end this year .

It was apparently M17, so a bit up from M417. Either M17 was fairly widespread across North Eurasia during the Neolithic, or its a mistake because the tests were done with PCR. But the same samples have apparently been analyzed by Harvard, so I guess we'll soon see how they fit into the picture.

@Nirjhar

European M417, Z645 and Z93 sure as hell are from the Eastern European steppe, so that means South Asian M417, Z645 and Z93 are from the Eastern European steppe. Deal with it.

Well India is under sampled and its not possible to allude what you propose ,this is something that most of people need to understand, that archaeology don't lie in broader sense and its also the basis of for example the Steppe Hypothesis , so given that and some other cultural traditional aspects etc , we will find that R1a y-dna is very ancient in India , more than of course 2000 BC . However, that won't mean that... people of Steppe Background didn't bring some R1a like the Sakas of course, who did come from Steppe area .

Years before the aDNA era , there were two areas one E Europe , the other S Asia , which was thought to have a deep presence of R1a , so nothing is surprising so far and don't expect anything different from S Asia as well.

@Nirjhar007,"Years before the aDNA era , there were two areas one E Europe , the other S Asia , which was thought to have a deep presence of R1a"

Yeah but apparently those studies used Y-STRs and so are totally unrelaible. Modern Y DNA doesn't indicate R1a is old in Eastern Europe or South Asia. Modern DNA often can't tell us what haplogroups existed where and when.

There's no line of evidence indicating R1a is old in South Asia because basically all R1a in south Asia belongs to post-3000 BC founder effects like in Europe.

If one relies solely on Y DNA it is a big surprise R1a1* and R1a5 existed in Mesolithic Europe. There's no chance R1a also existed in pre-2000 BC South Asia unless all of it went extinct.

I don't understand why you keep saying R1a is old in South Asia. Do you think that would will somehow mean R1a Z93 is from South Asia? It wouldn't. It's pretty obvious R1a's history in South Asia is restricted to Z93. And the Z93 finds in Bronze age Eastern Europe rule out a South Asian origin for Z93.

Yes Rob however if Bell Beaker was such a clear cut issue then why all the controversy before DNA evidence enlightened the whole scenario ? The Steppe Package started to break up in Central Europe.The survival of clear Steppe Archaeological Material goods I think depended upon the size of the migration.

Maybe the Migration/s towards India was/were smaller or the people they came into contact with more numerous than the Western Migration into Central Europe...?

If Andronova, Afanasevo, Yamnaya, Corded Ware, Khvalynsk, Samara and Sredny Stog Cultures were not Indo-European what other Languages do people that are against the Steppe Hypothesis, propose they spoke ?

I think everyone now agrees that at least Yamnaya and it's closely related offshoots/cousins spoke a language within the Indo-European language family.

Some disagree on whether this was Proto-Indo-European. They suggest that perhaps Yamnaya inherited the language from their non-steppe (maternal line?) ancestors, who seperately took it to other locations.

And of course in terms of India, there are several conflicting common arguments.

If some parts of the Hindu religion is actually related somewhat to other now dead European religions, and they spoke related languages, then you have to assume a physical or cultural migration from somewhere to somewhere else.

There has been a strong movement to suggest that 100% of Hinduism is native to India. This causes the conflict. Nobody really cares about the language so much. It is all about religion, as with so many other conflicts in the world.

For at least 4500 years R1b and R1a people lived among each other at Derievka and their close cousins througout the Pontic Caspian Steppe.

Don't you think that is enough time for some kind of language to form that can be detected as a shared Substrate within most of Europe compared to Southern Asiañ Indo-European language which will not have this Substrate ?

As far as I know there is no Common Substrate visible throughout Europe when we compare European Indo-European languages with South Asian Indo-European languages....

It's no use parroting around numbers and letters like above comments. It doesn't hide the obvious ignorance on the intracacies of shifting social and economic landscapes, and their implications for language change The second one is missing in many people here

The South Asian component in the K15 is based on modern South Asians who are mixed, so it contains steppe admixture, and when ancient steppe samples are projected onto this modern variation they come out part South Asian.

But here is a question you should answer in more detail. The South Asian component is negligible to non-existent in the 2 EHG samples. The Karelia HG who is R1a has 0.26 % of the South Asian component while the Samara HG (R1b) has 1.99 %.

When we come to the 7 Yamnaya samples, only 1 sample has the SA component as only 2.1 %, while the SA component in the other 6 samples ranges from 5.59 % to 7.61 %. Clearly, there is a significant increase of the SA component as we go from EHG to Yamnaya. This correlates with the arrival of the West Asian component in Yamnaya which is totally absent in EHG.

So, very clearly, the South Asian component in Yamnaya has come from the Southern CHG-like population, maybe from the Maykop. This is also supported by the fact that we have the clearly South Asian (ASI) mtDNA M52 in one of the Maykop samples. Let us also not forget the presence of 3 ydna L1a samples from Areni Cave, Armenia in the Chalcolithic phase, which has a predominantly South Asian presence.

You are suggesting an additional connection between South Asians and Yamnaya, that is not explained by EHG ancestry. And you make the assumption that it was mediated by extra CHG-like ancestry in South Asians.

But this relationship is already too complicated, until we have ancient DNA from South Asians. The same result could simply be later Yamnaya-like ancestry in South Asians, which is quite expected.

Nope, the K15 doesn't show any population movement from South Asia via Maykop to the steppe, because this is not corroborated by any formal models.

What it shows is that Steppe_EMBA-specific genetic drift accumulated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe from the Eneolithic onwards (after EHG went extinct), and some Steppe_EMBA individuals share more of this drift with South Asians than others do, probably because they're more closely related to the steppe populations that migrated to South Asia.

I designed the K15 so I know how it works, and obviously I'm more aware of its shortcomings than you are.

Let's recall your failed hypothesis of an early steppe migration to Iberia in 3000 BC; not to mention your laughable suggestions that Bell Beaker "spoke Celtic", despite several linguists going on record to claim otherwise. But let's move onto what you and your echo -man are wrong about now: People say words they don't understand. "Sredny Stog' , "Dereivka", "Samara".

How is it that you know that Samara HG 7000 BC spoke IE ? And how would we know their "cousins" in Dereivka spoke the same language ? Did they Google each other ? I mean hunter-gatherer bands several thousand KMs apart, having had separated thousands of years ago are most unlikely to speak the same language or group of languages. And what became of all the extinct Samara hunter-gatherers and their bygone lineages ?What happened when these fisher-foragers were almost wholly replaced by (realtive) southerners who introduced en bloc a new cultural package ? Did the new, incoming successful groups adapt the language of the fisher-foragers out of emulation ?

In fact, i'd bet you've never even heard of historical sociolinguistics.

But Karl, I do appreciate your humour, at least; not to mention your psycho-analysis of issues surrounding the IE question. Sometimes, self-reflection works wonders.

Hey Rob. I never said I knew what Samara people spoke. I just said that neither do you. And some kind of partly-pre-proto-IE is actually an excellent scientifically sound hypothesis based known genetics.

And as for your personal attacks(?), you had me all wrong then as well. I am a 100% skeptic. I don't think the truth on these subjects even CAN be known at all in full truth. You misintrepret my rhetoric as my actual opinion, which I don't have. I am mostly here for the discussion, not to determine what ever was or is reality.

"Hey Rob. I never said I knew what Samara people spoke. I just said that neither do you. And some kind of partly-pre-proto-IE is actually an excellent scientifically sound hypothesis based known genetics."

Non sequitur. Hunter gatherers are fractal, low-density groups with volatile and drifting languages. This makes the probability that (staying on same example) the foragers of the Samara valley and those on the Dnieper or Dniester speaking even the same family language *very low*. In fact, the genetic evidence tells us they were a distinct points on 'the continuum', and they'd been evolving their own volatile / fluctuant culture-historical trajectories for thousands of years.

This reality is very different to people here trying to hammer everything R1-something and remotely EHG into 'at least partly pre-PIE".

Anyhow, it's safe to say that in saying an extinct hunter-gatherer culture from 7000 BC not being PIE, my crown jewels are safe.

No doubt that hunter gatherers are fractal, low-density groups with volatile and drifting languages, just look at the (known) diversity of native languages in the Americas before Europeans arrived. And in that case we have a stong reason to believe that all of them arose from a very very small number of singular languages (3 or 4?) in less than 15,000 years.

So I have no argument about hunter gatherers.

But, it was not long before one or more closely related groups began expanding rapidly in population, and maintaining extensive long distance contacts. In fact, this common language family now has existed for over 5,000 years, and across multiple continents.

So, you are giving more weight to some dying and lost language families than to one of the most successful in the history of the planet. You can not simply discount this fact.

If the R1bs expanded from the Balkans where they were mostly situated along the banks of the Danube, into Ukraine, what would have prevented them from speaking a similar Language or belonging to the same Language family ?

It is not as if these cultures were separated by Mountains like people within the Caucasus or Papua New Guinea...or a huge desert like Australia. They basically staid in a similar ecological environment.

Some Migrating animals migrate for thousands of kilometres back and forth. It is not really hard to imagine contact between vastly separated populations living within the same ecological environment...

@Rob,"not to mention your laughable suggestions that Bell Beaker "spoke Celtic", despite several linguists going on record to claim otherwise"

Well guess what, linguists don't have time machines! Do you really think they are able to determine the age of a language?

There's no evidence of a recent mass migration from France or Germany into Ireland. If there was a proto Celtic migration from France/Germany into Ireland there would be a lot more U152, Df27, E1b1b, and J2 in Ireland.

The most recent important Y DNA ancestor of all Celtic and former Celtic speakers is R1b P312. There's no other recent Y DNA relations between Celts.

There was no Hallstatt or La Tene migration into the Isles. Just deal with it. The ancestors of early historical Isles Celts were Isles Beaker folk. Considering Beaker folk were half Steppe, it would make a lot of sense they spoke IE and specifically Celtic.

The same goes for Iberian Celts. There's not much U152 in Iberia. Instead Iberian P312 belongs almost exclusively to Df27. So it would a lot of sense Celtic languages arrived in Iberia during the Beaker period or shortly afterwards.

R1a M417 made large scale expansions after the Corded Ware period but R1b P312's expansions all occurred during the Beaker period or shortly afterwards.

Thank you. Yes I understand this however when you look at the Native American Language Families you see huge territories covered by some who were basically Hunter Gatherers. So it is not impossible for a Hunter Gatherer language family to occupy a huge area.

Karl K: "There has been a strong movement to suggest that 100% of Hinduism is native to India. This causes the conflict. Nobody really cares about the language so much. It is all about religion, as with so many other conflicts in the world."

Hinduism as we know today is indeed native to India. Nobody in contemporary India worships Indo-Aryan gods like Indra or the divine twins. Which makes sense as they landed in a heavily populated area which had it's own customs and religious beliefs. Local religion survived at a 'subaltern' level, evidently what the new comers did manage to change was the language that was spoken. It would be interesting to learn how that came about. The same thing seems to have happened in ancient Greece.

1) Horses remains doesn't equal migration from the steppe neither do nomadic burials. The Middle East was the homeland of agriculture yet there were many nomadic groups there. Also, Jiroft had horses and the oldest cavalry, does that mean they were from the steppe? Speaking of which Shulaveri had horse burials as well.

2) Swat/GGC can be traced only to BMAC and BMAC can be traced to Jiroft. With the new dates BMAC can't have a migration from the steppe and neither is the culture a steppe culture.

All weapons found in BMAC, the axes especially have their origins from the Iranian plateau.

1) I have seen nothing on Jiroft and Shulaveri having horses. Horses actually are a pretty good sign of migration from the steppe, as are nomadic burials. I mean, what else counts as archaeological evidence of Indo-European steppe nomads arriving in India? A sign saying "h₁eǵ aryo. h₁eǵ si-zd ék̂wos"?

2) I have seen nothing on the BMAC being traced to Jiroft. They are very distant from one another. That aside, you are right that the GGC is predominantly BMAC. That said, you do see the horse burials, horse trappings, and horse accessories of steppe cultures.

I haven't seen anything on all BMAC axes coming from the Iranian plateau. I have heard that some types of axes were found across the Iranian plateau, but were also found in Mehrgarh and IVC sites.

Wrong as usual. Celtic is just one recent expansion of a set of related western IE languages. Language expansion or replacement doesn;t need to be only with mass immigration. A whole set of other languages known (Germanic, perhaps Italic) and extinct (Lusitanian, Venetic) must derive from eastern BB, according to the prevailing hypothesis. This means the proto-Celtic expanded over them at a later stage, as did Germanic and later Roman; which markedly reduced linguistic diversity in western Europe. The 'time machine' linguists have is comparative lexicology which tells us that proto-Celtic had common vocab for terms like iron & chariots; which again tells us that Celtic did not expand until the late Bronze Age. This has been explained to you several times, but of course we don't expect it to sink in for certain individuals because - although simple enough concepts - they still require an IQ floor to grasp.

There's some more stuff but it'll take me some time to find them again.

As for Shulaveri you can read any post by Olympus Mons, it's been mentioned here a thousand times.

2) a. BMAC material culture can be traced to Jiroft and both can be traced to western Iran or it can be argued that it's native. They both have the same weapons and similar figures on their pottery (dudes wrestling snakes mostly), anyway. If you are under the assumption that BMAC is a steppe culture then the bad news; the steppe II model is that Andronovo took over BMAC and mixed with locals. That's the basics of the theory atleast, which cannot be proven now. b. Horses are animals that can be traded. Were Mesopotamians IE?

What counts is archaeological traces. Not people suddenly teleporting hundreds of miles while leaving no trace.

@Karl_K

"That depends. Does the introduction of a new language family that has been physically recorded for thousands of years not count in your version of archaeology?"

I'm not sure what you are saying. Was PIE recorded or the languages of Central Asia or IVC?

"And there's plenty of archaelogical traces. Andronovo pottery and kurgans appear in late BMAC settlements. You can pretend those don't exist but that won't change reality."

There are no kurgans in late BMAC.

There are some Andronovo ceramics appearing in some peripheral BMAC sites, but mixed with local wares. Overall, archaeologists (this side of 1990) see it as pacific & sporadic contacts with nomadic groups, bringing in milk products, which is what the residues of Andronovo pottery showed.

The "language-culture change with no genetic change" philosophy has faced terrible defeats in the age of ancient DNA.

Think about it. Basically all European languages are Slavic, Germanic, Uralic, or Romance. All correlate with specific y DNA hgs and or clearly in autosomal analysis aswell.

Why should Celtic be any different? If a people migrated throughout europe in circa 500 bc there should evidence in ydna but there isnt.

Shared terms for iron and what not in Celtic languages can be explained away if western Europeans who spoke different languages used the same term for iron. For example every language calls soccer "futbal".

Horses aren't airplanes that can just go thousands of miles. When people migrate they carry tools, tents.....etc. No one just rides their horse to their destination leaving everything behind including their old culture.

Everyone knows about the Andronovo pottery in BMAC, that's literally the only reason why they proposed a migration from Andronovo to BMAC in the classical Kurgan hypothesis. Yet, no one talks about the BMAC stuff in Andronovo because it proves that there was trading between them.

Andronovo style burials stop north of the Oxus, hence why archaeologists argue against a migration, especially one that changed the makeup of the region. Also, kurgan-like structures have been there before Andronovo, like Ulug Depe allegedly. Speaking of which, isn't the oldest Kurgan in Transcaucasia? :)

So, your scenario is that Andronovo appeared 1800BCE but suddenly teleported to Mesopotamia and India around 1600BCE while only leaving pottery In BMAC. Of course, let's not forget that some date IA reaching the west of the Indus around 1900BCE. Yep, it all makes sense.

@Vara>>A big migration that changed the genetic makeup of the entire area but left no archaeological trace?<<

India as a whole was deeply affected by it. Everything from Temples to Language is an attested proof.If you guys wanna deny that the Aryans came from outside of India, you might as well destroy every Vedic text there is, specially the ones when they explicitly say that they are from elsewhere, not India.You guys make me angry, you know? Those Aryan invader are your ancestors too, you have their blood - you have both the aggressor's and the assaulted's ancestry, why are you picking sides?

@DavidskiJust out of curiosity, if a median Ukrainian/Pole/Belorussian had children with a median Chechen, where would such children be on the PCA Graph?I mean, there's clearly a hole left by the Yamnaya, Corded Ware, Steppe_EMBA, Steppe_MLBA and people who lived in the region before further Turkic/Mongol/Indian admixture, so, what combination today would make their closest approximates?I know that even if the PCA Graph says that they match, they would still be different, but this is just out of curiosity.

@DavidskiRight, again, I know even if such modern people were produced and matched the Yamnaya in the PCA, it wouldn't be like the original Yamnayas, but are you saying that not even this is possible?For instance, a multi-generational Polish/Ukrainian/Russian + Georgian/Chechen/Ossetian mixing?

Why is it whenever someone questions something they're accused of nationalism, is it because that's what matters? It's all bragging rights?No, I'm not Indian, I've never been to India, I don't speak any Indo-Aryan language and I've said before I don't believe in OOI. And no they're not invaders because there is no proof of invasion.

Vedic texts said that they live in the land which Yama gave them. They don't say we came from the Volga river. The original land of Yama could be anywhere. Here's the shocker: I-I languages can't be from anywhere north of Bactria. Why you might ask? No camels remains were found there till 1200BCE. Every reported remains of camels are now considered onager remains. It's actually pretty funny reading some Slavocentric posts about how Zarathushtra was born around the Volga! Yep, the owner of the golden camels lived in an area were no camels lived!

@Vara>>Why is it whenever someone questions something they're accused of nationalism<<Specifically regarding this Aryan-India question, the only people that deny such migration are Hindu Nationalists themselves.

So, do you know about the Mitani? If the Aryans are "indigenous" from India, could you explain the Mitani? Or how Dyeus Pater appears both in Rome and in Vedic texts?Well, you can't, right? Because you only raised a question of "what if?", well, it just shows lack of information of your part.

@VaraI didn't read your posts, this is true. I only read the part where you speak of archaeological evidence.Well, things degrade with time, specially in hot humid climates, and specially if people build new cities on top of old ones.But it's all there. There's a paper coming soon with Ancient Indian DNAs also (I don't know when).

Now, the Mitanni are not proof against anything, but for it. They're an offshot of Indo-Aryans who crossed an already known route that Indo-Iranians made and settled in before. The dates are all okay, genetics is all okay, archaeology is all okay, language is all okay, I don't what's the point you're trying to make.

@Vara>>What kind of personality did I have in your mind though? Just wondering<<I thought you're one of the many Hinducentrists we have here, specially by the question you've raised and your name "Vara".

>>Also, stop imagining me as an Indian nationalist. Thanks<<You answered it yourself.

>>No, the dates aren't okay.<<Yes, they're. Do you know a person can walk from one side of Europe to another in less than a year? W-a-l-k-i-n-g.These migrations took hundreds of years. They were slow, they had offshots, they have failed and successful expeditions, etc.Just to put in perspective, the Country "United States" is 241 years old, less then, let's say, Shintashta - tons of things happened.Again, everything is okay.

Back to central/ South Asia I am of the opinion that the Andronovo scenario is false. Genetics has confirmed that where there is an archaeological trail, there is a genetic one. So unless we come up with inventive metamorphosis scenarios like Ric's, the only reasonable position is that "steppe admixture " already existed in south Central Asia by 2500 BC, which squares with andronovo being a poorer fit. After all; the only evidence for shifts into Swat valley comes from BMAC.

People here are mistaking "Absence of evidence" for "Evidence of absence".There's one guy in Adronovo(I don't remember if it's indeed in Andronovo) who fits perfectly, the outlier one - if there was one of him, you can bet there were more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vara^ Nothing Indian there but you were close. My Vara comes from Yima's vara. I don't think It's there in the Vedas.

"Yes, they're. Do you know a person can walk from one side of Europe to another in less than a year? W-a-l-k-i-n-g."

And do you know some places that is considered trespassing? Do you know that in order to walk a very long distance you need to have provisions with you? Do you know that you might need tools as well? Do you also know that people didn't have air conditioners or heaters back then? Do you know that when people migrate they have children with them?

^ All of that can slow things down. Now the Andronovo guys managed to go through all the civilizations of the Iranian Plateau leaving no trace and ending up in Northwestern Mespotamia.

"These migrations took hundreds of years. They were slow, they had offshots, they have failed and successful expeditions, etc."

And you know this how?

No wonder Rob insults everyone. I guess it gets tiring when everyone think you support the Anatolian Hypothesis when they just don't read your posts.

>>And do you know some places that is considered trespassing?<<No such thing in a lowly policed world. People went around freely, the whole nomadic-horse people is about that. Also, do you think in the time spam of hundreds if not thousands of years such groups would always fight, always hold the same territories, etc? This is nuts.

>>Do you know that in order to walk a very long distance you need to have provisions with you?<<You're applying today's logic to that time. They were nomads, their lifestyle was ever-wandering and their culture is a mobile one.

>>Do you know that you might need tools as well?<<They had, how's this an argument?

>>Do you also know that people didn't have air conditioners or heaters back then?<<Yes, do you think they did have? Also, those people are used to living in those environments, their culture was successful because of that precisely. During thousands of years.

>>Do you know that when people migrate they have children with them?<<I don't see this as a problem? They carried the babies along with them, or pregnant women in horses. This is far from unachievable.But also, most of the invader groups were of bachelors seeking new lands, as seen by the discrepancy of y-dna and mtdna.

>>all the civilizations of the Iranian Plateau leaving no trace<<Which civilisations, I ask? There was only Elam there before the Persians. It was a huge nothing. And of course they left no trace, they were migrating and they were mobile - leaving traces are for settled peoples.And again, "Absence of evidence" is not "Evidence of absence".

** "The "language-culture change with no genetic change" philosophy has faced terrible defeats in the age of ancient DNA. "

You don't undestand the implications of what you discuss. What DNA rejects is the notion that the Neolithic was the final big movement into Europe. It does not reject later movements after the Bell Beaker period, including smaller scale elite mobility and more complex socio-lignuistic contact scenarios.

FACT: Scotland spoke Pictish until the early Middle Ages; and then changed en mass to Gaelic within 2 generations; without population change

FACT2: much of western Europe was RLatinised without any major population change.

* "Think about it. Basically all European languages are Slavic, Germanic, Uralic, or Romance. All correlate with specific y DNA hgs and or clearly in autosomal analysis aswell. Why should Celtic be any different? If a people migrated throughout europe in circa 500 bc there should evidence in ydna but there isnt.'

The continental late Bronze Age isn't in 500 BC, but after 1500 BC (halstatt/ 500 BC is developed Iron Age). That's what happens when you try to pontificate, but lack even basic understanding of geography and periodization.

What happens when a thin stratum of R1b -rich migrants from western Europe move to Ireland (which is also R1b -rich)?

* "Shared terms for iron and what not in Celtic languages can be explained away if western Europeans who spoke different languages used the same term for iron. For example every language calls soccer "futbal".

No it cannot. There is a difference between shared inheritance from a common proto-language and diffuse "wonder-words" moving across different language groups.

I did read recently about some changes after BMAC, introduction of steppe -like metallurgy to souh-central Asia and further south in the post -1500 BC. But would that fit with linguistics and literary evidence, or is it too alte ?

Nirjhar has a poor understanding of the genetic data, which means that he's operating in an alternate reality as far as this topic is concerned.

It's a waste of time denying that South Asia was overrun by Bronze Age steppe herders. You should try and get your head around the genetic data that shows this and then take a fresh look at the archaeological record.

Genius. We are talking about a migrating group that contributed to 40% of South Asian ancestry, such migration takes more than 100 years, so they weren't a few elites. It took more than that for Bell Beakers to take over a less dense population. Yes, Turks did the same to Turkey and India and didn't leave that much of a genetic impact.

"Which civilisations, I ask? There was only Elam there before the Persians. It was a huge nothing. And of course they left no trace, they were migrating and they were mobile - leaving traces are for settled peoples."

Exactly why we have no trace of Corded Ware or Yamnaya.

Instead of asking about civilizations or people in Iran you could've googled it. However, since I'm really nice I'll you about some of them; Gutians, Lullubians, Kassites, Jiroft civilization and some more stuff in the north.

@Vara>>Genius. We are talking about a migrating group that contributed to 40% of South Asian ancestry, such migration takes more than 100 years, so they weren't a few elites. It took more than that for Bell Beakers to take over a less dense population. Yes, Turks did the same to Turkey and India and didn't leave that much of a genetic impact. <<When have I said any of that? Of course they weren't only a bunch of elites.

>>Exactly why we have no trace of Corded Ware or Yamnaya.<<There were "centers" and "bases". That's exactly where those findings in Central Asia were, and they were few, in a spam of thousands of years.Or are you gonna say that you have gigantic Yamnaya samples, all concentrated in sedentary settlements, like Beakers?

>>Gutians, Lullubians, Kassites, Jiroft<<Not civilisations, but raiders and Elites. They were nomads too. They originate in the Caucasus and they never crossed the Elamite frontier (The Jiroft timing is completely off, they weren't militarized and are much more related to the IVC time-spam than with Indo-European times).

or 4) Since nomads can show up and suddenly South Asia is full of steppe ancestry, why can't this be from the Hephthalites or Indo-Scythians?

"Nirjhar has a poor understanding of the genetic data, which means that he's operating in an alternate reality as far as this topic is concerned."

You can model everything as you'd like and I can come up with scenarios as I like. Give me some time and I'll make it work :P

"It's a waste of time denying that South Asia was overrun by Bronze Age steppe herders. You should try and get your head around the genetic data that shows this and then take a fresh look at the archaeological record."

I'm actually just denying how it happened for now. Maybe to you all that matters is that they're from the steppe and chances are that that's true, I, however, would like to know the whole thing.

"There were "centers" and "bases". That's exactly where those findings in Central Asia were, and they were few, in a spam of thousands of years.Or are you gonna say that you have gigantic Yamnaya samples, all concentrated in sedentary settlements, like Beakers?"

That's literally what we have of most civilizations.

"Not civilisations, but raiders and Elites. They were nomads too. They originate in the Caucasus and they never crossed the Elamite frontier (The Jiroft timing is completely off, they weren't militarized and are much more related to the IVC time-spam than with Indo-European times)."

No idea where you came up with the Caucasus thing. Kassites had settlements from Isfahan all the way to Luristan and Kermanshah. Jiroft lasted till the those supposed migrations and they were militarized with the oldest proof of cavalry. You can add Zayendeh River Culture to that list as well.

@Vara - "So, your scenario is that Andronovo appeared 1800BCE but suddenly teleported to Mesopotamia and India around 1600BCE while only leaving pottery In BMAC. Of course, let's not forget that some date IA reaching the west of the Indus around 1900BCE. Yep, it all makes sense. "

They left pottery and graves. What else do you want them to leave behind - a freaking map? A giant sign that says "VARA YOU'RE WRONG! WAKE UP!"? You can't say they left no archaeological trace and then just dismiss the archaeological remains they left behind.

Also tell the Navajo that they were supposed to leave behind yellow brick road with VARA LOOK AT ME signs when they migrated thousands of kilometers in the span of a couple generations.

No teleportation required. I don't know how slow you walk, but in 800 years people can move pretty far. Folks made it from the Beiring Strait to Terra del Feugo - a far greater distance - in that span.

"Andronovo style burials stop north of the Oxus, hence why archaeologists argue against a migration, especially one that changed the makeup of the region. Also, kurgan-like structures have been there before Andronovo, like Ulug Depe allegedly. Speaking of which, isn't the oldest Kurgan in Transcaucasia? :)."

News flash: British people don't bury their dead in kurgans anymore either. Cultures change over time. Ulug Depe is in no way derived or related to Andronovo. The burials in BMAC are.

>>That's literally what we have of most civilizations.<<No, maybe you're mistaking "found" with "sampled".Also, again and again and again - People, specially in the Middle East, built cities on top of one another, you can't compare that scenario with nomadic settlements and provisional bases.

>>No idea where you came up with the Caucasus thing.<<History. For instance, Gutians were clearly.

>>Kassites had settlements from Isfahan all the way to Luristan and Kermanshah.<<Also known as the "Elamite frontier".

>>Jiroft lasted till the those supposed migrations.<<No, it ended before. It coexisted with Shintashta, yes, but at completely different places. They ranged in the south, when the North was clearly open. Also, do you really think that they would attack any passing peoples for no reason at all? This is expected from Nomad bandit raiders.No matter your justification, it's an empirical fact that those people moved and reached those places. Never forget: thousands of years.

>>and they were militarized with the oldest proof of cavalry.<<They weren't, as they hadn't foes. It was purely for policing.Now, "oldest proof of cavalry" is just a joke here, right? The whole of Indo-Europeans were built on cavalry, since ever.

>>Zayendeh River Culture<<Completely off by some thousands of years. You're just trying too hard.

I don't even know what's your point now, as you said you don't deny Steppe peoples entering India. But then you say that you wanna know "exactly" how - well, this is impossible solely for the lack of samples and is useless to discuss it.

@kk"That depends. Does the introduction of a new language family that has been physically recorded for thousands of years not count in your version of archaeology?"

Does not count as physical evidenceEarliest IE in s Asia is from 350 bc from Bactria to Sri Lanka. Earliest IE in Eastern Europe is what .. Church Slavonic? botai culture has horse remains Karelia and baikal have R1 Hinduism shares traits with mesoamerican cults so should we Count these as physical evidence of IE

1. Do not depend on theories , but follow facts and patterns in broad scale .PIE is a big issue so its just not Genes but other aspects are needed to be harmonized also, including archaeology,cultural aspects and recorded history and its characteristics etc of each specific zones .

2. It is crucial that we detect y-dna pattern and for that a great help can be a genome from recorded IE population , so in that case, the upcoming Greek aDNA will be a nice reference .

3. It is understandable, that there is a nervous energy running around since some very significant genomes are pending and soon will be out , but if we just stay calm and keep ourselves focused , we may find that whatever comes, will not be very unexpected if we have followed/observed most of the aspects of the zones concerned .

By the way, here's a challenge: can any of you anti-AIT/AMT champions rework my Brahmin_India qpGraph model to prove that Indians don't have ancestry from the steppe, or whatever it is that you're trying to argue?

Here's the graph file. I can run the model if you upload your version of this file.

If there are any lessons to be learned, it is that every model of Indo-European origins can be found to reveal serious deficiencies as we increase our scrutiny”.

Serious deficiencies in every model of Indo-European/Indo-Germanic origins come from wrong definition of PIE.Indo-European should be defined as that which is common for Europe and India. PIE should be defined as the language spoken by tribes just before the split.Indo-Germanic was not spoken by tribes which split and went to Europe and India. From genetics and linguistics we now know that they spoke Indo-Slavonic languages.R1a-Z645 spoke Indo-Slavonic, then they split, R1a-Z292 went west to Europe as Balto-Slavonic and R1a-Z93 went east to Asia as Indo-Iranian.

Just thinking out loud, but Afansievo dates to c. 3300 BC (although some earlier articles had placed to 3600 BC - perhaps and 'old wood' effect). Even with the 'toned down' date of 3300 BC, it is still a couple hundred years earlier than Yamnaya.

The solution offered to this (e.g. Anthony) was that it represents a migration from Repin (which dates from 3600 BC) instead of Yamnaya. The problem with this is the specific economy of Afansievo (predominantly caprines) c.f. still predominantly wild, hunted animals in the pre-Yamnaya steppe. The solution offered by Frachetti is the possible antecedents of Afansievo patoralism from Zerafshan valley and a few other (admittedly sparse) sites moving up the mountains of Inner Asia. In turn, Anthony put up a sound rebuttle to Frachetti's hypothesis (most notably lack of clear typological links between the material culture in south-central Asian Eneolithic & Afansievo).

Nevertheless, given that the Zerafhsan valley lies on the north of the Hindu Kush, it might gives us the source of 'steppe admixture' in South Asians, and do away with the problem of a lack of clear trail from the western steppe.

Also; we recall that of the Khvalynsk individuals, the one that had most CHG was the haplogroup Q man.

The composition of the Rigveda can be dated to 3700–3100 years ago, and more likely 3500-3200 years ago. The physically existing Mitanni texts from 3400 years ago are obviously related to Vedic Sanakrit, and have enough in common (both the language and dieties) with the earliest written Brahmi script Rigveda to assure that the dating is accurate, and the oral preservation as hymns before writing was very careful.

The geography described in the Rigveda can clearly be mapped, which all together is virtual proof that Vedic Indo-Europeans lived in the Northwest part of the Indian sub-continent around 3500-3200 years ago.

So we know when and where these people existed, along with their language, culture and beliefs. We know because they have told us this themselves, through their oral traditions, which can be linked to written records about migrants to Syria at around the same time.

As of today, nothing in the archaeology of IVC can be strongly linked at all to Indo-European languages or culture, or Yamnaya-like genetics at all.

The Vedic culture was semi-nomadic. And we know that the language they used was very closely related to those associated with archaeological cultures that were nomadic on the steppe, and had massive migrations through much of Europe and Asia at exactly the right time to also have also had large migrations into South Asia.

I don't honestly see what is difficult about this. Every piece of the puzzle fits.

Maybe the picture on that puzzle is a little fuzzy still, and the details are hard to see, but as a whole, most of the modern Indo-European languages (if not all) came from some semi-nomadic steppe people who went all over Europe and Asia and either took advantage of any opportunities that arose in other lands, or somehow contributed to weakening other cultures through disease or their lifestyle, or had another kind of cultural advantage that we don't know about.

Oldest R1a* (M420) are infact from West Asia (Iran & Caucasus), not found else where in Eurasia. They have low steppe admixture there which proves there was no major migration there to cause a language shift.

Even if we go by this now dented Kurgan theory, those Caucasus women will most likely be the source of this hypothesized construct PIE language considering mothers teach their children the language.Horses and other material culture, words for new goods could easily spread through trade.

@Ajay“Kurgan is not good enough to explain linguistic construct Indo-European family, which will fall apart sooner or later like Altaic language family did.”

Kurgan theory will be debated, PIE will reworked many time, but one thing will not change: Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages are closely related. It will not change because it is based on real (not reconstructed) languages. It is a reality.

https://s21.postimg.org/3ymh1tmt3/tree.png

Indo-Iranians and Balto-Slavs have common origin and it is not India, believe me.

It could be that whoever brought ANE ancestry from Siberia to the Zarzians, giving rise to Iran Neo, settled in South Central Asia and thus having more ANE ancestry than even Iran Hotu. This of course means that IVC had pseudo steppe ancestry.

^ My understanding of Nirjhar's theory. Biggest problem to this is Y-dna since most of India's R1a is Z93 but they could argue that it'sampling bias. Also, there's the hint from Johannes Krause that IVC was mostly ASI.

Except through central Iran with contacts with Elam and Mesopotamia, of course. Can't forget FrankN's Baghdadu in Hammurabi's reign.

This works very well with the South Caucasus hypothesis with a clear trail. It can work with the Steppe hypothesis as well, Indo-Iranian languages were brought with whoever brought Steppe ancestry to Armenia and then moving with the Kura Araxes influence all the way to Helmand river and then splitting.

Fits with the Indo-Iranians having camels and horses, east meaning forward to the Indo-Aryans and general literary evidence.

Only problem is that how can this have such a strong effect on South Asia?

@ Davidski, since you sort of offered, and really from my POV just to see how badly these models will fail, a few models where Brahmin_India is descendant only from sort of basally diverging ANI-ASI nodes, and other populations have admixture edges from those ANI-ASI to explain their position.

"As of today, nothing in the archaeology of IVC can be strongly linked at all to Indo-European languages or culture, or Yamnaya-like genetics at all"

Nothing in the disparate Anatolian, Mycenean or Mitanni archeological artifacts suggests a so called common IE culture, whatever that means to you. without a deciphered script no one would link them with IE, leave alone each each other. Yamnaya genetics does not mean IE this is circular logic. prove the linkage first without secondary assumptions.

"The Vedic culture was semi-nomadic:"So what? There were coexisting sedentary and settled cultures in the IVC region since prehistoric times and still exist today. they belong to many language families from IE to Tibeto-burman, Austric and dravidian.

Also, please show rig Vedic verses that explicitly show shifting habitation in exclusion to all other kinds of habitation. Very few bovine herding cultures are nomadic.

As for geographical references I agree with you. the vedas depict northwest India if you go by the traditional river names. They also preferentially refer to the Ganges(northern vs north western India) in the older books(conventional philology). They actually don't have evidence of any migration or any knowledge of non Indian locations. perhaps you should start reading the verses.

So, who were the PIE? who were Pre-PIE? Linguists will keep constructing hypothesized languages, until this entire 'Indo-European language family' will simply end up like Altaic language family over time.

@Ajay "Uralics from Volga-Ural regions are closest to Yamnaya, not Indo-Europeans."

Don't matter. Bashkirs are closest to Yamnaya, not Indo-Europeans, also. But they aren't Uralics, but have R1b-Z2103 from Yamnaya and big "steppe" admixture. The quantity of the admixture is determined by the heterogeneity.

But the "steppe" admixture in Uralics from Volga-Ural region doesn't peak and they have not got R1b-Z2103 from Yamnaya! They also have WHG & EEF admixtures not from Yamnaya, but from Central Europe!

In another Uralics, the "steppe" admixture is very little or zero. All Uralics have East Asian admixtures! Uralic languages come from Siberia, this is a fact.

Point is : Yamnaya are not PIE. Closest population to Yamnaya are not Indo-Europeans. It's now considered Late-PIE among ppl who support construct PIE language.

When it comes to South Asians, there are already various problems. Steppe admixture in S.A prefers Yamnaya over Sintastah-Andronovo. There is no trail of Yamnaya or Andronovo migration to South Asia in archaeological record.

Steppe admixture in South Asians looks pseudo-steppe, overwhelmingly one-sided-CHG-shifted from what i saw in one of Razib Khans post. I'm sure once we have aDNA from South Asia, this pseudo-steppe will disappear into Neolithic IVC ancestry.

The highest levels of Yamnaya-related admixture are found among Indo-European speaking Northern and Eastern Europeans, and closely related Uralic speaking Northern and Eastern Europeans, as well as in South Central Asians.

This of course backs the idea that early Indo-Europeans were very much like Yamnaya. The high level of Yamnaya-related admixture in Siberian admixed Uralic speakers of Northern and Eastern Europe is no argument against this, because these people are obviously in large part of Indo-European origin, with recent Uralic ancestry.

And there's nothing pseudo-steppe about the Yamnaya-related ancestry in South Central Asians. It's very real and correlates well both with R1a-Z93 frequencies and Indo-Iranian languages.

Your arguments in regards to the oldest R1a clades being found in West Asia are worthless, considering that the ancient DNA record already includes Eastern European forager populations with R1a but no West Asian admixture (i.e. they are unadmixed indigenous Europeans).

So you haven't debunked any of the points I made in my post and you have no argument.

PIE is an idealised reconstruction of several interrelated dialects, but it isn't in anyway a false construct. Comparison to Altaic is entirely misplaced, because the latter attempts to link several different families into one superfamily, which is not the case with PIE.

@Davidski"Your arguments in regards to the oldest R1a clades being found in West Asia are worthless, considering that the ancient DNA record already includes Eastern European forager populations with R1a but no West Asian admixture (i.e. they are unadmixed indigenous Europeans)."

What? EHG who carried R1a was admixed and was mostly ANE can be seen in Lazaridis et al 2016 which showed EHG as 75% ANE. EHG also did not carry R1a* (M420), what he carried was downstream clad. EHG also did not directly contribute to Yamnaya but he is a good proxy for that (for now).

As more anDNA comes from West Asia, we will see some R1a* (M420) there, it's only found in West Asia right now and it's ancestor to all R1a1 found in Eurasia.

@Rob"PIE is an idealised reconstruction of several interrelated dialects, but it isn't in anyway a false construct."

That is itself is the problem, it's an idealised reconstruction based on pieces/fragments taken from other languages to form one big super family, just like how Altaic language family was formed by linguists.

I understand quite well and i have seen your qpGraph graphs and others qpGraphs. Take your current qpGraph on this blog post and other users like Matt who replicated Reich study. We know from Reich study that population admixtures will be complex, much more complex than qpGraphs you put out here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XSV9HEoqpFaWJEME9aRXhZeUU/view

Steppe admixture in South Asians will be more complicated than some "Yamnaya", that's for sure.

@Ajay"Yamnaya are not PIE."The Kurgan theory is not called Yamnaya theory.

"Closest population to Yamnaya are not Indo-Europeans."Based on nothing statement. Proto-Indo-Eropeans and Indo-Eropeans are difference things.

"Steppe admixture in South Asians looks pseudo-steppe" No, because have EHG (& WHG) from Europe.

The following statements contradict each other. The first associates the arrival of R1a with the emergence of Indus Valley Civilization, the second with its predate destruction. To lead them in the same text as arguments is impossible, because they conflict.

"Early urbanization within the Indus Valley [...] occurred at [5,600 years ago] and the geographic distribution of R1a-M780 (Figure 3d[note 9]) may reflect this."Underhill is wrong not the first time. Indus Valley Civilisation occurs earlier this date, however, this date you insert in his text. R1a-M780 is subclade under R1a-Z94 and Underhill shows that the treasure R1a-Z93 from north. Ancient DNA R1a-Z94 are in Europe where it appears, it is a fact.

“The most striking are expansions within R1a-Z93 [the South Asian clade], ~4.0–4.5 kya. This time predates by a few centuries the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization" This text is not mean that 4 kya those clades were in Indus Valley.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XSV9HEoqpFaWJEME9aRXhZeUU/viewLooks pretty good but could someone make a tree with Papuans, Oase, Kostenki, Vestonice16, Goyet, El Miron, Australian Aborigenes, Devil's Gate and Baikal Hunter Gatherers to get a full picture. pSiberia probably wasn't ever full West Eurasian and I wonder about connection between Devil's Gate/Baikal and ANE. It would be good to add Iron Gates hunter gathers too as they're supposed to have some unknown ancestry not present in WHG/SHG/EHG.

@Ir PegasusExcept EHG is admixed, carries mostly ANE which came from Siberia or Central Asia. There is no debate about this, see Lazaridis et al 2016.

We see ANE in ancient samples from CHG to Iran-Hotu to Iran-Neolithic, it's presence is wide-spread in ancient samples we have so far, not unique to EHG.

South Asian "steppe" admixture looks predominantly CHG-shifted from what i saw on Razib Khans post, CHG was already in South Asia during Neolithic period with Iran Neolithic. Any migration from "Yamnaya" contributing 30%-50% admixture is not realistic with no archaeological records of Yamnaya-like people.

Again, West Asian R1a* (M420) is found in both Iran and Caucasus, it's ancestor to all downstream R1a1* clads in Eurasian. We will see what aDNA from South Asia and Central Asia says.

Except EHG is admixed, carries mostly ANE which came from Siberia or Central Asia. There is no debate about this, see Lazaridis et al 2016.

Irrelevant.

We see ANE in ancient samples from CHG to Iran-Hotu to Iran-Neolithic, it's presence is wide-spread in ancient samples we have so far, not unique to EHG.

Irrelevant.

South Asian "steppe" admixture looks predominantly CHG-shifted from what i saw on Razib Khans post, CHG was already in South Asia during Neolithic period with Iran Neolithic. Any migration from "Yamnaya" contributing 30%-50% admixture is not realistic with no archaeological records of Yamnaya-like people.

False.

South Asia was home to an Iran_Neolithic/ASI mixed population before the migrations of steppe peoples into the region. Iran_Neolithic is not CHG.

Again, West Asian R1a* (M420) is found in both Iran and Caucasus, it's ancestor to all downstream R1a1* clads in Eurasian. We will see what aDNA from South Asia and Central Asia says.

False.

Modern West Asian R1a cannot be ancestral to ancient East European R1a. This is impossible.

The so called R1a*(M420) lineages in Iran are simply young off shoots of basal clades that could have come from the steppe during the Bronze Age.

And they are on a different branch than "South Asian" Z93, which derives from Z645 and M417, which have already appeared in Yamnaya-like Late Neolithic/Bronze Age Eastern European samples that cannot be recent migrants to Europe, because they are a mixture of local forager groups EHG and CHG, plus ancient European farmers.

Sorry but by making such insults you are just showing that you are a infantile boor.

>MA1 was different but Afontova Gora was quite similar to modern Siberians.

What problem do you have with this statement? At least Western Siberians have around 57%(some probably have more) ANE which for me is quite similar and their additional East Asian-related admixture isn't as far away from ANE as many other genetic components. MA1 was significantly different from later ANE. Which is not surprisng as Paleolithic Pre-LGM people weren't the same as Neolithic/Mesolithic ones genetically even when belong to similar clusters.

MA1 and AG3 are part of the same Mal'ta cluster for a good reason you ignoramus; they differ only slightly from each other. This is shown in Fu et al. 2016 and easy to reproduce in a variety of analyses.

Ancient Y DNA outweighs modern Y DNA. Population replacement is relatively common. By relatively I mean it is very rare but does happen sometimes. People from different ethnic groups rarely mix with each other. Sometimes one ethnic group survives and one goes extinct. The Y DNA of the population that went extinct also goes extinct.

Modern European ethnic groups trace a small minority of their ancestry to the Mesolithic groups who lived on their piece of land(10-20%). Most is from Mesolithic groups who lived on different parts of Europe and Western Asia, in particular Russia and Turkey.

In addition modern European Y DNA is dominated by "mega-lineages" which emerged after the Mesolithic; R1b-M269, R1a-M417, N1c1, I1, I2a1b2. Most of those lineages emerged in Russia(R1b-M269, R1a-M417, maybe I1).

The point is, R1b and R1a were very popular in Mesolithic Europe. But the vast majority of those R1b/R1a lineages went extinct. Infact there's a good chance R1b1a and R1a1 originated in Europe.

That type of Y DNA and population replacement happens more often then you might think. The DNA of some Mesolithic groups don't make it into the DNA of people living on their land today. Modern Y DNA can only tell us so much about the what Y DNA was there in the Mesolithic.

About that article I don't fully agree with him. I am waiting for professionals to give the robust write ups , anyway I agree on the statement from an academic on that article :Chavda's article starts very well and has good remarks on scientific method, but the reconstruction of the history of R1a is weak. The study by Lucotte that he cites does not say that R1a comes from India, but that Z93 is more ancient in Pakistan and India. About R1a, it seems that Lucotte more or less approves this reported reconstruction by Klyosov: "The haplogroup R1a arose in CentralAsia (apparently in South Siberia and/or neighboring regions) around20 Kyears; not later than 12 Kyears bearers of R1a1 already was inthe Hindustan, then went across Anatolia and the rest of Asia Minorapparently between 10 and 9 Kyears, and around 9-8 Kyears they arrivedto the Balkans and spread over Eastern Europe to the British Isles."

I agree with you that the ''massive invasion'' scenario which dudes here are proposing is unrealistic and devoid of facts and hard data . Unless ancestors were super-humans . Anyway, I truly think that R1a is very ancient in S Asia .

R1a is very ancient in Eastern Europe and Siberia. This is already a fact because it's based on ancient DNA, and it makes sense, because much of Eastern Europe and much of Siberia have the same ecology.

South Asia is out of the picture.

It's already pure fantasy to claim that R1a is very ancient there based on modern DNA. South Asia is a different world ecologically from Eastern Europe and Siberia, and so it doesn't fit into the picture.

R1a will be there in India at least from Neolithic . aDNA from India is coming .

Now I have no idea what is ecology's contribution on presence and and non present of hg's , maybe you have read more on the correlation, as some also suggest a pure geological connection .

And as I said quite a few times, it is necessary that a good amount of sample set from S Asia is taken for modern dna investigation and also for aDNA investigation . The Civilization was vast with vast population ,unparalleled to the ancient world . modern situation is also similar with population .

So lets wait , I will have no problems if your scenario gives the facts and hard data (only possible from Genetic POV now,though unlikely ), I will accept it , but for now you can shout all you want , you will not be able convince .

Foragers are adapted to very specific ecological conditions. Just like animals, say, wolves, where one subspecies is adapted to forests and another to plains, and they hardly ever mix even if within 5 kms of each other most times.

That's why EHG lived in Eastern Europe but not in nearby Central Europe.

There sure as hell was nothing resembling EHG in South Asia. And thus no native R1a.

There are Indian wolves :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_wolfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_wolf

I don't agree that there are any such 'direct correlation' of ecology and Hg's , just like there are no direct relations of Hg's and autosome !. But I let the more learned folks here comment more deeply on that.

The thing IMO is people migrate for different reasons , not every time the reason can be verified , but a background of such migration can be achieved, from modern and ancient dna correlation .

I don't think anyone here is proposing a "massive invasion". They are just proposing that tribes of migratory pastoral people moved in and were very successful in the area, just as they were successful across a huge area in Europe and Asia.

”The high level of Yamnaya-related admixture in Siberian admixed Uralic speakers of Northern and Eastern Europe is no argument against this, because these people are obviously in large part of Indo-European origin, with recent Uralic ancestry.”

I am firmly against this idea that my genes would be in large part of Indo-European origin. They won’t be. Uralic speakers have their own cultural background and area where they developed and the core area is very much Yamnaya-like.

The Finnish gene blogger recently found out that FinnLocal, i.e. the Comb-Ceramic ancestry that was typical for Finland before the Corded Ware, is quite far from the Estonian Combed Ware. Then he found out that the Finnish ancestry is not closely related to Estonian Corded Ware (http://terheninenmaa.blogspot.fi/2017/)

Russian is a very recent language in Volga Ural (it started spreading from Kiev during the Middle Ages). The autochtonous languages in Volga-Ural were Uralic languages and also Turkic languages were spoken there before Russian.

I don't want to get into a lingustic debate, I don't know if Finns have a lot of IE-speaking ancestors. But I do know most of Finn's ancestry is from people like Corded Ware and Funnel Beaker not like Comb Ceramic or Narva. There's definitely significant Comb Ceramic and Narva input but it represents a minority of Finn's ancestry.

I am, but I'll downsize it to a massive migration, or even a moderate one, if the data points this way. I move with the data.

@Kristiina

I hate to break this to you but as you know, I have your genome, and it's very similar to those of nearby Indo-European-speakers, and in fact, very similar to my own.

Now, I ain't no Uralic, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm just making the point that I'm not, and not too many of my ancestors were. So that must mean you're of Indo-European origin by and large.

Many of my ancestors were bilingual, i.e. spoke Finnish and Swedish. Language is not a genetic trait. I am sure that my ancestors have spoken very many different languages.

Finnish ancestry is not from Estonian Corded Ware. Swedes are more Finnish than Finns are Swedish (http://eurogenes.blogspot.fi/2016/08/on-remarkable-genetic-homogeneity-of.html). It is possible that Finnish farmer genes are mostly from Scandinavian Funnel Beakers who were Non-IE.

However, Finns are not so relevant for the origin of Proto-Uralic as it probably developed in Volga Ural area.

1. Graph 1 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XSV9HEoqpFczRaRW5rYjYzZjA/view?usp=sharing), the split order was: Basal Eurasian (B), then an ANI+ASI clade (D1 and D2) ancestral to Brahmin_India and then Euro_HG+East Asia split of from each other. So in this model, I was meant to have D1 (ASI) mix with Basal East Asian to generate Onge, while D2 (ANI) mixed into proto Iran_N (F6) and Yamnaya_Samara (F9). I messed this up a little, by putting in an unnecessary F7 and F8.

The biggest (intended) problem with this model and why there is the -22 stat is that there is no edge from ANI to an ancestors of Caucasus_Mesolithic or Eastern_European_HG, and that leads to the bad outcome for relatedness of Brahmin_India to Caucasus_Mesolithic.

2. Graph 2 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XSV9HEoqpFMHU4akdieHJINVU/view), split order same as above. Model was as above, except rather than having "ANI" mix into the ancestors of Iran_N and Yamnaya_Samara, I had it mix into proto IranN (F5) and and the proto Caucasus (F4), from which CHG and half of Yamnaya descend.

This still gets a -16, as EHG is too far from Brahmin_India.

3. Graph 3 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XSV9HEoqpFci14X0xOUUNrSDg/view), split order same as above. Differences are that ANI goes into ancestors of all West Eurasians (EHG, CHG, Iran_N) and ASI into ancestors of all ENA (Onge, Ami).

This actually gets a semi-respectable Z score at 4.525 which is not near as extreme as the others, but the big problem obvious here is there is a profusion of 0 drift length branches and 0% admixture edges, which indicates something pretty askew with the topology.

To simplify this one, we could simply remove pop D and D2, and having admixture into ENA (E1) and pBrahmin directly from A, and change replace admixture into F2 between D1 and F with a simply edge from D1): https://pastebin.com/ABgbz30W . That should eliminate all the 0 drift lengths and 0 admixture edges and keep the score basically as is.

Note, I didn't think any of these would work at all. There's also no evidence for either of the ANI / ASI in my graphs actually existing as ancient populations, and its much better to not multiply ghosts all over the place, so it's a moot point.

When we get ancient DNA from Volga-Ural we may see that there is a genetic cotinuum between forest Volga and Finland.

As for my genome, I am more Balto-Slavic than average because on the basis of genealogical research, one of my father’s maternal ancestors was of Russian descent. This is also supported by my father’s mtDNA U4d1a1. Now that I have done genealogical research, I have seen that during the Middle Ages, there were many contacts between Finns on one hand and Germans and Danes on the other hand in southern and southwestern Finland. Almost all of my ancestors are from this part of the country, and I have noticed that there are some Danes and Germans among my medieval ancestors. However, this is only fairly recent admixture.

"I am, but I'll downsize it to a massive migration, or even a moderate one, if the data points this way. I move with the data."

There were certainly some conflicts between the populations, but to say it was a huge military operation is definitely not where the data point.

Just look at the R1a haplogroup diversity, 100% of the Z93 diversity that makes up ~99% of Indian R1a originated less than 5,000 years ago, and still formed a very closely related family of branches when the migration to south Asia occurred. Most of the haplogroup diversity expansion happened either just before or at the time of the migration.

We also know that in much of Eurasia at that time there was quite a lot more diversity in haplogroups, almost all of which never made it to South Asia at all. So the 'invasion' couldn't have been massive, especially when compared to the population of locals.

We know that by ~3,700 years ago, the Indo-European speaking people had no memory of a migration at all, and still spoke of a history that involved only interactions and battles between somewhat small tribes.

I obviously know that a single man could have more than a trillion descendants in 1,000 years, but that doesn't really make sense in this case. It is more likely that the founding population of Indo-Europeans in India was not actually that large at first, but rapidly expanded just before the time of the migrations, and only from a few closely related tribes.

South Asia has a lot of variety and structure in terms of Z93 lineages, and this is not a local feature by and large, but an imported one from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

What this suggests is that some part of the steppe during the Bronze Age, probably the Kazakh steppe, was home to a population with high frequencies and diversity in Z93, and a large subset of this population moved into South Asia, probably in several waves.

I'm not saying that this was a coordinated military operation; rather just an invasion of a new peoples and culture. But yeah, as you note yourself it was probably accompanied by some violent episodes, not only between the newcomers and locals, but likely also between the different new tribes coming from the steppe.

In the qpGraph model above, you have pBrahmin_India formed from a 33% Onge like (ASI?) population with 67% D10 (ANI?), where D10 is 50% Yamnaya like + 50% Iran Neolithic like.

a) Does this model still work if the admixture between Onge like and Iran Neolithic like takes place first, before the steppe admixture? You stated above that “South Asia was home to an Iran_Neolithic/ASI mixed population before the migrations of steppe peoples into the region.” but I think your model does not show this.

b) Would the model work if Iran_Neolithic ancestry came in two waves, both before the steppe admixture, and again as part of the steppe admixture? Is this not the most likely case?

c) Finally, does the model remain stable when you substitute other Indian populations for Brahmin India.

Alright then. I think we actually agree. I was just surprised, because I was assuming that you were using the word invasion as it is usually applied to humans, which usually implies aggression and intent to take over (even if just talking about a city being 'invaded' by tourists or students or whatever).

"as you note yourself it was probably accompanied by some violent episodes, not only between the newcomers and locals, but likely also between the different new tribes coming from the steppe."

Without a doubt. The Rigveda makes it obvious that inter-tribal warfare was very important to the long-term myths and legends of the Z93 carrying people. Probably because the day to day of moving animals between pastures (and probably mostly grazing those animals on other people's farmland while having to threaten to attack with advanced weapons if necessary) was way too boring to remember.

The Neolithic people of Europe and South Asia didn't have barbed wire fences. How do you suppose they dealt with an enormous herd munching on their livlihood, while guarded by armed men?

b) It depends what you mean exactly, because the Yamnaya-related populations that moved into South Asia were not part Iran_Neolithic; they were basically a 50/50 mix of EHG and CHG, with some minor WHG and Levant farmer stuff from somewhere. See here, for example, where the Caspian edge results in either a failed model with Iran_Neolithic, or it's just ignored when given a choice with Iran_Chalcolithic.

But if you mean that the Yamnaya-related groups came into the northern part of South Asia where they mixed with Iran_Neolithic-related locals before moving further south, then that might be correct.

c) Yes, this is a fairly stable model with the highest Z scores usually well under 3 for almost all South Asian populations, and only sometimes with Z scores of a little over 3. Also, maybe more importantly, it ever only shows a few Z scores of over 2.

@Ajey"Except EHG is admixed, carries mostly ANE which came from Siberia or Central Asia. There is no debate about this, see Lazaridis et al 2016. We see ANE in ancient samples from CHG to Iran-Hotu to Iran-Neolithic, it's presence is wide-spread in ancient samples we have so far, not unique to EHG."

Thanks for Brahmin_India_qpGraph2.png, I think this graph is much clearer in that it fits a more likely sequence of admixtures. As you say, it is identical to Brahmin_India_qpGraph.png in its scores. I understand better how qpGraph works now.

Yes I meant that the steppe related folk could have mixed with Iran_Neolithic-related locals in the north before moving further south, but is this is not required to get stable models then it may not be significant admixture.

w.r.t Garvan's question, scenario (b) it is rather unlikely that a pure 'steppe' population arrived unadulterated to South Asia: as you both mentioned they must have picked up Iran Neolithic from/ in BMAC (for example); just Beaker -steppe groups picked up TRB ancestry.

@ MattThanks. I gathered what the graphs depicted, i just wanted your own feedback on them.

It's possible that the steppe people picked up extra farmer ancestry in Central Asia, so that the main admixture event in South Asia was between one group that was a mixture of steppe herders and Iran_N or Iran_ChL and another that was Iran_N/ASI. I don't have an opinion right now because it's a very difficult thing to model at the moment.

Hopefully we'll be able to work out most of what happened when the data from South Asia comes in.

@KristiinaMy dad was from SW Sweden (a mix from Värmland and Halland to Gothenburg) and my mum a mix from Kajanaland and Western Nyland/Finland to Helsinki) resulting in me carrying yDNA: I-M253 DF29/S438 without subtypes (an early defining marker), and mtDNA: HV0 HVSI C16298T V7a1 (C16298T mutation detected in aDNA obtained from human remains excavated on Gotland, dated to 2.800 -2.000 BC). I think the Uralic is more homogenous yet less researched than IE which is more diffuse in its earlier hypothesized states. To me it looks like the pre-Finnish position between IE and northern hunter-gatherers is crucial for the understanding of what happened in the borderline between steppe people and HG people.http://scienceklevius.blogspot.co.uk/